Blockchain will save your business. This is not a drill! /// Part V ///

An entire Residence in every confirmed transaction:

The Blockchain Promise

How do we define real? The ability to touch, see, feel with our senses? All the brain relays and nothing more if you ask me. Another question…what do you and I understand by the term ‘death’? The end of the ability to talk, move or do anything expected of a living body, right? But then, how do we know we are really alive and all we see aren’t just what our brains interpret as real? I mean, the brain plainly is the source of all our understanding of the meaning of life. I mean, sometimes a movie on a large screen can get so interesting that I get carried away thinking I was in there seeing all that’s going on and feeling it as well. You know what I mean, if you’ve been there.

These days, we have more than the flat large TV screen, we have 3D – and God knows how many other D’s on display there are, 3D printers capable of printing a whole house, a virtual reality game as real as what we believe to be real among others. The rate of adoption of these things is alarming. We endlessly crave for something new, different, an imaginary reality, a virtual world where we only have to imagine things to have it so.

The world is going digital, but you and I are aware of only little of this. How much do you know about digital products? The technology behind them is advancing at such a rate that I think, soon, we will live in a digital world where real people will exist but only virtually. Let me take you on a little journey of what you may call the Utopia of Impossibilities. A world as real as it gets where the dead lives on.

Prolonging a life may be difficult in this world, but not in the world I am about to paint for you. Remember the Mr. and Mrs. AI that recently moved into the neighborhood? Yes, our dearest neighbor, Artificial Intelligence. Word has it that they learn pretty fast. How difficult do you think it is for them to learn to speak like you, think like you, and do all the things that you do just like you do them when they have years and years to live within the same space as you? Not so difficult, right? They are already doing it.

So, there’s this virtual world you can get plugged into for days using a machine stationed but dynamic at the same time. All you need to do is to get strapped in, wear the gloves, the helmet, and the earplugs among others. Powered by the sun, to ensure it gets all the electricity it needs. Part of the machine is a well-preserved source of nutrients in liquid passed into your veins as prescribed by your vitals to keep you nourished throughout the entire time you are connected. Inside this virtual world, you get the opportunity to go to work or do whatever it is that you do in this life, make friends, buy houses. You get to start over and live the life that you want, all your dreams can be achieved as virtually everything is made possible.

For every character in this world, an Artificial Intelligence is dedicated to learning all of his/her attributes and a 3D scanner will create a digital copy of him/her to be brought to life in the other world. In summary, while you live in this world, the AI learns all there is to learn from you, but when you are gone, it will keep on learning from the available sources as it will choose different oracle sources in the same way that you would have. So your thought/mind lives on.

Funny thing is this isn’t a topic up for discussion on our list of Blockchain possibilities. At least, not just yet. It’s a journey for another time. Perhaps I will write an article on blockchain immortals next time. Representing each human with certain codes compiled together and documented to be kept alive on the decentralized ledger.

Today, we talk about the digital marketplace. Just another wonder of possibilities of the digital ledger. Blockchain isn’t real; it’s a created virtual world which of course poses an obstacle to a “real” marketplace in the beginning as only digital products can be transacted. This was at the beginning of course; over time somehow a lot of products have been digitalized. Our focus will be on establishing a market for the digital products on the Blockchain, enhanced using a lightweight contract.

The usual digital products that are sold include:

eBooks (being the most common of all)

Apps

Video tutorials

Members-only content or discussion boards

Tools or templates

Coaching

Webinars

Original music

Stock photos

Online courses

I will like to add another which is the “Digital/Electronic prints”.

One of the challenges we often face when we buy internationally is the long wait for the shipment to arrive or having to pay extra for the delivery or even realizing that we aren’t allowed to trade with the country among many other reasons. A lasting solution will be to be able to order an artwork from China and be able to hold it physically in the U.S. a few minutes later after printing it.

My idea is to create a marketplace on the Blockchain where digital designs such as 3D arts and other 3-dimensional objects including houses can be traded and then printed a few minutes later. Thanks to advancing technology, a house can now be printed in 24 hours for as low as $4000 in cost. So, in such a marketplace, all I need to do is buy a duplex design for a cost, then rent a mobile large 3D printer and an operator to print the house. The same is applicable for artworks.

3D printing is commonly known as the action or process of making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many thin layers of a material in succession. It enables you to produce complex (functional) shapes using less material than traditional manufacturing methods. To create any complex shape in different sizes, you will need the digital model and that’s the market we want to add to the Blockchain.

Although the technology is quite new and testing isn’t done, it is a solution to printing many things including spare parts of various products, print clothes and in the medical lines for replacing artificial limbs etc. All these can be designed aesthetically with improvements and sold in the Blockchain marketplace. The house printing suits itself quite well in disaster areas or developing nations where the houses can be built very rapidly and with a smaller set of skills. With simple requirements which exclude recruiting hundreds of laborers, all you need is a skilled laborer to operate the printer. Even better, the printer can work around the clock.

Few of the existing marketplaces where the usual digital products are sold include:

An example of a decentralized marketplace is the type originally built into the NXT Blockchain and now a feature on the Ignis child chain. To initiate a trade, the process is as follows:

A developer uploads a message describing a product (it’s stored on the Blockchain).

A user sends a payment to the developer’s account over the blockchain.

The developer sends an encrypted message with a link or a code (stored on the Blockchain as well).

The user decrypts the message and uses the code to unlock premium in the application.

Trading with an unknown buyer or seller in most cases can be dangerous being in a dark and black market. Products can’t be guaranteed. But with the advent of some recent developments including Lightweight Contracts, and the use of Oracles on the Blockchain, these issues can finally be put to rest.

Selling and buying on the Blockchain will still follow the same procedure as stated above, but a new seller or product will need to undergo certain processes. Thanks to the Account Properties feature of the Nxt and Ardor Blockchain platform, accounts can be ascribed with descriptive data which is also visible on the Blockchain. The Oracle source will be used to display products from sellers who have had their real identity confirmed, and the quality of their product confirmed, with the confirmations recorded on the blockchain (tagged to their account). Now to the question of how trust is earned.

Trust is earned by recommendation which can be explored on the Oracle, possible in two categories: by the buyers and by the previous sellers.

We all understand how recommendations by the buyers work.

Seller’s recommendation is attainable in hierarchy. The first seller on the platform to achieve buyers’ trust must test the subsequent seller’s product and vouch for it. A seller needs to select another seller on the platform, send a copy of the product to him/her for his/her recommendation before the product can be confirmed as trusted. Of course, everyone will be free to use the platform, and buying products without recommendation will be at the risk of the buyer. But in order to protect the buyer’s interest, the above-described process needs to be put in place.

Lastly comes the challenge of the best platform to choose when considering starting. I’m sure this is obvious already. A platform that needs no introduction. Fully scalable with the ability to integrate the Oracle and deploy blockchain-based contracts easily. A blockchain platform displaying a five-year success of harnessing the power of the sun. Chose wisely by going for the Ardor blockchain platform and you need not worry about security.